The Avalanches’ ‘No Bad Memories’ Is Beautifully Chaotic – And That’s Entirely The Point
There’s a particular art to creating something deliberately overwhelming. Most artists stumble when they attempt it – drowning in their own ambition, losing sight of what makes their music compelling in the first place. But The Avalanches have never been most artists. With No Bad Memories, arriving on October 16th, 2026, they’ve crafted what might be their most provocative statement yet: an album that weaponises excess as both its greatest strength and most frustrating limitation.
Controlled Chaos Meets Pop Perfection
Let’s address the elephant in the room first: this album is a lot. Thirty-one tracks squeezed into fifty-two minutes, over twenty guest collaborators spanning from experimental pioneer Suzanne Ciani to indie royalty like Karen O and Panda Bear, plus unexpected appearances from production heavyweights Jamie xx and Barry Can’t Swim. There’s even a voiceover from Mike Patton of Faith No More, and a genuinely surprising turn from Carly Simon. Oh, and the whole thing ships with a surrealist sci-fi film directed by someone with serious artistic credentials.
It’s easy to dismiss this as maximalism for maximalism’s sake – the musical equivalent of a brand trying desperately to go viral. But that would be missing the forest for the trees. The Avalanches understand something fundamental about 2026: we’re drowning in information, bombarded by advertising, haunted by digital remnants of the past. No Bad Memories doesn’t just acknowledge this – it uses it as a compositional framework.
Advertising As Philosophy
The album’s thematic anchor is advertising and branding, though not in the way you might expect from a critique. The Avalanches treat commercialism as morally ambiguous territory – a space where rampant capitalism and undeniable creative ingenuity coexist. Throughout the record, genuine pop moments sit uncomfortably next to commercial snippets, Nokia ringtones (remember those?), hard drive whirs, and mouse clicks. On ‘Together’, that instantly recognisable Nokia tone transforms into something resembling a half-garage, half-hyperpop earworm.
Where their previous album We Will Always Love You anchored itself in melancholy, this successor constantly shifts emotional territory. The gorgeous neo-soul collaboration with Loaded Honey (the Jungle side-project) floats in early on and returns as the penultimate track – moments of genuine warmth. Elsewhere, that despondency resurfaces with force. But here’s where things get tricky: the more upbeat moments sometimes veer dangerously close to pandering, stripping away the edge that made The Avalanches compelling in the first place.
When Overstimulation Works – And When It Doesn’t
The album’s structure is deliberately chaotic. Just as a sonic moment builds into something genuinely magical – like the big synth wash on ‘Total Recall’ – the rug gets pulled out by yet another advertisement. The first few times it happens, it’s clever. By the tenth, the trick wears thin. There’s a fine line between artistic statement and audience exhaustion, and No Bad Memories doesn’t always respect that boundary.
Where the album truly excels is when it allows songs space to breathe. Karen O’s crystalline vocals on ‘Blue Shadows’ shimmer with melancholy. Portraits of Tracy’s performance on the sad-pop banger ‘Can’t Get Over Losing You’ wears its heart entirely on its sleeve. John Glacier’s razor-sharp flow over the rushing beats of ‘Far Away’ cuts through the noise with real intention.
These moments remind us why The Avalanches have remained vital across multiple decades. When they commit fully to a song, when they resist the urge to interrupt themselves, the results are as good as contemporary pop music gets – genuinely precious gems that’ll stick with you long after the album ends.
The Verdict
Not everything lands. Some ideas feel underdeveloped, casualties of an album that prioritises quantity and stimulation over refinement. The constant shifts in tone can feel scattered rather than artfully eclectic. And yet, there’s something genuinely brave about releasing something this uncompromising in 2026, when algorithmic playlists and TikTok virality reward consistency and predictability.
No Bad Memories is excessive and overstimulating by design – deliberately so. Whether that’s a feature or a bug depends entirely on your appetite for controlled chaos. But for those willing to surrender to its madness, there are rewards waiting in the spaces between the noise.
